Gain-Centricism

I surely must look like I love what I say--and SO I DO!

So, here's some stuff I just posted in answer to somebody's comment on a Daily News opinion letter concerning the possibility of a tax-hike for the wealthy (over $250,000):

First, here's the link to the original letter (while you still can).

And, since I'm not sticking around to come back here to edit this post when they do pull down that link, here's the original letter as printed in Friday's local Daily News:

Rich get mad because they have to pay more

Friday, April 15, 2011 11:20 AM CDT

Print this story | Email this story |  |  Text Size 

It’s really tough when you make over $250,000 a year.

It starts with the house. When you make more than a quarter of a million dollars a year, you need a big house. And a big house comes with a big mortgage payment. I mean, nobody pays cash for a mansion, ever.

Then there’s the cars. Even if a couple of family members have to drive 4-year-old BMW clunkers, it still costs a lot to keep them serviced and insured and licensed. But what else can you do? You gotta drive something.

And vacations: it’s really expensive to fly to an island in the Caribbean or to Europe. Plus, the decline in the value of the dollar versus the euro really jacks up daily expenses. Sometimes, I’ll bet people making more than $250,000 feel like it would just be cheaper to have a second home, maybe in Florida or Arizona.

The list of problems is practically endless. Utility bills, clothes, shoes. Have you looked at what good shoes cost these days? Memberships in clubs, contributions to the Republican Party. It just goes on and on.

And lastly, taxes. After all these expenses, you have to pay taxes, too. Of course, federal income tax is only applied to adjusted gross income, so with itemized deductions and all, you really need to make over $300,000 to pay the top rate. Oh, and the top rate only applies to amounts over $250,000, not to the first $250,000, but still, you have to pay a lot of taxes on top of everything else.

Don’t you feel sorry for people who must deal with all of this?

Can’t you understand why they don’t want their taxes to go up? I sure can’t.

David Dickson

Bowling Green

Ok, so here's the comment that inspired this particular 'NowI'mReallyMad' rant:

novocainemind wrote on Apr 15, 2011 12:42 PM:

" You know what drive me crazy? Being penalized for working hard and being successful. I think Mr. Dickson sounds a little jealous.

Oh, yes he did.

Well, we've all been there...sitting around, computer in hand, nothing to do (Netflix account overdue, left World of Warcraft account password encryption keychain at 'new friends' house)...so, "Hey, I think I'll pound on somebody for being ridiculously responsible and saying something smart in a printed, public letter" pops into your head.  Yours, maybe--mine's trolling the 'net looking for just such tripe to pone into my own canonical exegesis, my own hierarchical counter-thesis.

I'm looking on the internet for grandma-cellar-dwellers, to try and teach 'em some life lessons, is I guess what I'm trying to say in this ridiculous manner.

I made it mine.

@novocainemind:

Honesty and fairness should dictate our tax code--not our 'admiration' for the inordinately rich. We don't even know how they got that way.

Bernie Madoff work hard? nah.

Kenneth Lay (Enron?) surely must have burned the candle at both ends...now HE burns at both ends.

'ex' BP CEO Tony Hayward--that little pimp-- 'work hard'? Why, sure--since HE was rich enough to go on a genuinely idyllic yachting FANTASY during the spill. But...maybe...no, unless you count his insincere, pinched, facial expression during his public hearings--or when gave his infamous 'I just want my life back' speech. That was hard work--we ALL loved seeing that.

Some people are SO VERY FILTHY WEALTHY that they can't possibly live long enough to spend it all, or even SEE it spent. Let that set in.

Many 'six-figure earners' are 'oil-rich'--as always--while respectable, hardworking people are forced to line up at 'this end of the pump', only to 'take it in the end'.

Blind adulation of the rich is misguided.  Rest assured, people 'that rich' don't even care if they pay taxes at all...they're probably surprised anyone noticed, and that they'll have to start.

and, my 2nd post, hopefully appearing by this afternoon or better:

Even some currently-'successful' people are showing signs of becoming greed-mongering pestilences themselves (if they already aren't).

Look at tycoon Warren Buffet ('cause I can't--eeek, a p*nis!).  He really does schedule times to 'Buy stock on the day of the crash, yeah' (Pearl Jam quote).

Yet he doesn't answer that one--anymore.  Almost burned him in his quest to feel important'er when he gave--publicly as possible--the bulk of his $44 billion fortune to the Gates foundation (also a financially wealthy couple who've never worked a single day in their collective lives!)

So, how's that driving you crazy?

Don't know 'em well enough?

Wow--famine, disease, and poverty--now, those are things that really drive us ALL crazy.

I'm sure a percentage of fat doesn't hurt half as much as 100% of nothing.

I'd also bet (if I was crazy enough to be rich!) that, after you get to about 10% of 'as rich as you can get', everything you do to get any more is illegal, fraudulent, and maybe even personally damning.

Idunno, maybe we can ask the old owl (the IRS)...how many bites does it take to get to the end of a gain-centric world?

(for me--prob'ly ONE! Munch!)

I just love canonically 'exegesisizing' Grandma's boys.
Yet, somehow, I just can't see myself writing for John Stewart...not my milieu.
I write for 'whoever'.